


The Secret

by things_that_matter



Series: CMBYN: Life with Ollie [27]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Discipline, Domestic Fluff, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Punishment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:54:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29135145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/things_that_matter/pseuds/things_that_matter
Summary: Ollie was injured doing something he was strongly warned against. Can he keep it a secret?
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman
Series: CMBYN: Life with Ollie [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2094873
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	The Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Ollie had to learn a hard lesson in this one. Not for sensitive readers. Not for those who supermuch love Ollie. Probably not for those who supermuch love Oliver, either. In fact, maybe no one should read this, lol! I just write what comes to me, and sometimes my imagination is a bit harsh I suppose.

“Whatcha doing?” Ollie asked. 

Oliver looked up from where he was kneeling in the dirt, surprised to hear the little voice. He hadn’t even heard Ollie come outside. 

“I’m planting tomatoes,” he explained. He had recently decided to plant a garden. He’d given the excuse that they all loved vegetables, which was true. But his ulterior motive was that he wanted to make their little yard feel a bit more like home to Ollie, and to Elio, too, for that matter. They had both experienced what, to Oliver, seemed like idyllic formative years in Italy surrounded by gardens and orchards, and Oliver hoped to create for them a little taste of that here, on a smaller scale of course. 

“Can I help?” Ollie asked. 

“No,” Oliver said, smiling. An explanation was conspicuously missing. He watched Ollie’s face register disappointment, as he knew it would, but he still didn’t offer an explanation. He was hoping Ollie would eventually deduce the reason for himself. 

“Why?” Ollie finally asked. Deduction is a complex skill at age seven. 

Oliver looked pointedly at Ollie’s bare feet, then cast his eyes back to his face and waited. 

“Shoes?” Ollie asked. 

“Yes, shoes,” Oliver answered. “I’m getting tired of telling you that I want you to wear shoes outside, Ollie,” he added sternly. 

“But… it’s summer,” Ollie whined. 

Oliver decided not to address the whining and focus instead on the topic at hand. “I know what season it is, Ollie. I still want you to wear shoes outside. You could step on a nail or something,” he explained in the voice he used for things he’d already explained at least twice before. When he saw that Ollie remained unconvinced, he added, “And if that happens you’ll probably need to get a tetanus shot.” Like every other child, Ollie did not approve of shots under any circumstance, which of course Oliver knew and wanted to use to his advantage. 

“But Danny doesn’t wear…” he began but was very quickly interrupted. 

“Go put your shoes on, or go play inside, and if I have to have this conversation with you again, you won’t like it,” Oliver knew he was being a bit harsh, but they’d torn down a shed the winter before, and he didn’t want Ollie getting hurt on any lingering debris they may have missed in clean up. Additionally, he was not at all fond of the “everyone else is doing it” line of thought to be sure. 

“Sorry,” Ollie offered in his sad puppy voice. 

Oliver reached up and took Ollie’s hand, giving it a little squeeze. “Just go put them on. I need some help with these,” Oliver said, waving a baby tomato plant. He felt relieved when Ollie smiled. 

Ollie gave a little salute as a smile spread across his face. “Okay, I’ll be right back!” the little boy said as he bolted for the house. As Ollie flung the door open, Oliver heard him yell enthusiastically to his brother, “I can’t right now,  _ Elio. _ Oliver needs my help with the garden!!” Oliver chuckled to himself, and stuck the spade into the fresh earth, ready to dig the hole for the next tomato plant. 

The following morning, Ollie was playing in his room when he heard the doorbell ring. He wasn’t technically supposed to answer the door, but only Elio was home today so he thought he could get away with it. Elio was busy anyway, outside looking at the section of garden Oliver had planted the afternoon before, with Ollie’s help of course. 

When he opened the door, it was Danny hoping that Ollie could play. 

“Let me ask my brother!” Ollie said, running to the back door and yelling out to ask Elio if he could play next door. Moments later, he returned, delighted to report that yes, he could play. He was so eager to go play with his friend, in fact, that he completely forgot about the alleged need for shoes.

They decided to play in Danny’s yard, because his parents were building him a treehouse, which Ollie thought was wholly unfair but also super cool. The children weren’t allowed to go into the treehouse yet, as it was still a work in progress, but they liked playing in its vicinity, which was the best they could do for now. The first thing on their agenda was obviously their daily ant training session. Recently, during an extremely confusing episode of Charlie Brown, Elio had tried to explain to Ollie about Pavlov and his dogs. Since then, every day Ollie and Danny had put out some sort of food they thought would be irresistible to ants. Today’s bait was a Cheez It. Later they would check the bait, and if it had ants on it, they would ring a bell. If their experiment was a success, and Ollie was all but certain that it would be, by the end of summer they would be able to simply ring a bell and the ants would come marching from every corner of the earth. 

After about twenty minutes, the boys decided to go check the status of the Cheez It. But, as they were running over, Ollie felt an agonizing pain on the sole of his foot. He immediately dropped to the ground, every bit of effort was focused on one goal, the same goal every shared by every other injured seven-year-old-boy the world over…  _ don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry _ , he begged his eyes. While Danny was recording important data into their journal about the presence of ants, or lack of, Ollie wasn’t currently sure, nor did he care, which, Ollie was staring in horror at his foot which still had a small piece of glass protruding from it. Ollie grasped the piece of glass with his fingers, closed his eyes, held his breath, and pulled. He didn’t feel an increase in pain, and was beginning to think he might survive. But, when he opened his eyes, he was mortified by what he saw. A large drop of blood was forming and then oozed in a thin line across the bottom of his foot. Ollie let out a wild scream, which brought Danny, who’d not yet noticed his absence, running to his side. 

“What happened?” he asked. 

Ollie couldn’t answer, because if he did, he knew he would cry. 

Danny made a quick decision, “Wait here. I’ll go get your brother.”

“NOOOO!!!” Ollie yelled in a panic. 

“Why not?” Danny wanted to know. 

In a flood of words that Danny could barely understand, punctuated by a hefty dose of small sobs and tears, Ollie explained, “Oliver told me I can’t come outside without my shoes and I’m going to get in so much trouble, and….and…” Ollie paused to take a few shuddering, sobbing breaths before continuing. “And I’ll have to get a shot!” 

Danny’s face became very solemn when Ollie reached the part about the shot. He quickly devised a clever plan, “Okay Ollie, I’ll go get your shoes. You’ll just have to keep your shoes on and they won’t know.” 

Ollie wiped at his eyes, sniffled, but then nodded to his friend. “There are some in the garage,” he called shakily to Danny’s back. 

Soon enough, Ollie was sitting on the sofa reading a book, in pain and on the verge of tears. 

“What are you up to, Ollie?” Elio asked when he walked into the room a little later. 

“Reading,” he answered truthfully. 

Elio stopped and looked at him appraisingly. “Are you okay?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” Ollie answered. He didn’t dare look up from his book, because if Elio saw his face, he would know something was wrong. 

“Okay,” Elio said, but there was some hesitance in his voice. “Do you want Kraft Mac and Cheese or frozen pizza for dinner?” he asked.

Ollie’s heart sank at these words, not because of the options, but because it meant Oliver would probably be home soon. 

“I don’t care,” he answered. He felt his big brother’s eyes on him for a long time after that, but eventually, thankfully, he was left alone with his book. 

Ollie decided to try walking a little bit, to see if he would be able to. As soon as he stood though, there was a fierce pain in his foot. He winced and looked at the chair near the hallway. With that as his goal and no one to see him, he limped laboriously across the room and dropped himself onto the chair. He wanted to sob. Because of the pain in his foot. Because of how angry Oliver would be. Because of the painful shot he would have to get. In his little seven-year-old mind, the needle was 10 inches long and the size of a pencil lead, and would be injected directly into his injury, naturally. He swiped angrily at a few tears that were filing his eyes. He was so angry at himself. This was all his fault. If he had only listened. 

Eventually Ollie made it to his room and laid on his bed. 

He’d almost dozed off when Elio appeared in his doorway a little later. “Hey, Oliver’s home. Wash up for dinner,” he said happily. His brother was always so happy when Oliver was home, Ollie had noticed. This made him happy, too, but right now he just couldn’t be happy.

“I’m sick,” he told Elio, and he thought this might be true now. His foot hurt. His tummy hurt. His head hurt. This must be tennis or whatever Oliver had said. 

“Sick?” Elio asked, his voice heavy with concern. He was already walking over and placing his hand on Ollie’s forehead. “What’s wrong, Ollie?”

Ollie began to think he’d made his first misstep. “My tummy hurts,” he reported. “And, my head hurts, too.”

“Hmmm. Well, come eat, Ollie. Let’s see if that makes you feel better,” Elio suggested. 

Ollie shook his head. “Nuh uh,” he muttered. 

Elio did what he always did when he didn’t know what to do, he went to ask Oliver for advice. 

A few minutes later, Oliver was sitting on the edge of Ollie’s bed, also feeling his forehead. Ollie didn’t understand why all grown ups did this same thing when a kid was sick. 

“Tummy ache, huh?” Oliver asked. There was a gentleness to his voice that made Ollie want to cry, but he didn’t. He only nodded. 

“Well, you have to come try to eat something, Ollie. Just a few bites. If it doesn’t help, then you can come lay back down,” Oliver said with the voice that Ollie knew there was no need to argue against. 

Slowly, Ollie sat up in bed and swung his legs over the edge. He placed his feet gently on the floor and waited, trying to be brave. Finally Ollie summoned the courage to stand, but he could not stop the wince that followed. Oliver’s look became even more concerned. After Ollie took a few limping steps, he started to cry and Oliver gently scooped him up, and placed him carefully back onto his bed. 

“Elio,” Oliver called. 

And immediately, there was Elio. “What’s wrong with him?” Elio asked, and Ollie felt guilty when he heard the panic in his brother’s voice. 

Oliver was gently pressing on his tummy now. “I don’t know. I’m sure he’s fine, but maybe he needs the doctor,” Oliver answered, and Ollie could hear that he too was very worried. Ollie knew he had no choice but to tell the truth. 

As soon as he began trying to explain what happened, his crying increased, making it difficult to convey what happened. Haltingly he recounted his afternoon at Danny’s, the ants, the glass, Danny’s run for the shoes, and finally, his reasoning for keeping it a secret. 

Elio, being unaware of the earlier conversation between Oliver and Ollie, felt like he had turned on a movie three quarters of the way in. He tilted his head and looked from one to the other, trying to make sense of  _ anything _ his brother was talking about. 

Of course, Oliver knew, though. “Elio, can you grab the first aid kit?” After Elio left, Oliver gently pulled off Ollie’s shoes and determined which foot was injured. By the way Ollie was sobbing, he expected a cut that would need 15, possibly 20 sutures. What he found was a very small, but fairly deep cut on the sole of Ollie’s left foot. “Ollie, you’re okay, it’s just a little cut,” he soothed. But Ollie couldn’t be comforted. 

When Elio brought the kit, Oliver took it and nodded at Elio who then sat down and held Ollie’s hand and talked to him about the ant experiment to take his mind off of what Oliver was doing to his foot. Only a few minutes, some peroxide, ointment, and one butterfly bandage later, Ollie was as good as new. Oliver picked him up and placed him on his lap. Elio was sitting beside them, unwilling to leave such an upset Ollie’s side. 

“Ollie, you should have told us you hurt yourself,” Oliver said, but to Ollie’s relief, he didn’t sound angry. 

“I would get in trouble though,” Ollie sobbed. 

“I’ve talked to you about this, Ollie. Even if you get in trouble, you still talk to us. You can always talk to us,” Oliver said adamantly. “Always,” he added once more to emphasize. 

“Sorry,” Ollie muttered. His crying was beginning to slow now, and Elio went to grab some tissues. 

“No trouble you’ll ever get in with us will ever be worse than being hurt, or sick, or scared,” Oliver felt terrible about what Ollie had been through today. He hugged the little boy tightly as Elio returned to hand him a tissue. 

Ollie had stopped crying by this time, so he sopped up all his tears with the tissue and handed it back to his brother who, with some reluctance, took it. 

“Do I have to get a shot?” Ollie asked, trying his hardest not to start crying again. 

Oliver shook his head “We’ll just keep an eye on it. I know it hurts, but it’s just a very small cut.” 

Elio sat back down beside them. “Group hug,” he said in a funny voice that he knew would make Ollie laugh. 

He was, indeed, rewarded with giggles. 

“I’ll go reheat dinner,” Elio volunteered and got up to leave. 

Oliver stood, still holding Ollie, and followed him to the kitchen. 

Elio rolled his eyes as he heard Oliver’s voice behind him, “From now on, I want you to wear your shoes outside though.” 

_ Rules, Rules, Rules _ , Elio thought to himself, as he opened the microwave door and shoved the entire pizza, metal tray and all, inside. 

“ELIO!!” both Ollie and Oliver called in unison, and everything was back to normal. 

  
  
  



End file.
